Grandpa Francis' Applesauce

applesauce cupcakes: the sauce
Originally uploaded by jek in the box

My grandpa made applesauce this way, and I''m sticking to it.

Quarter apples--stems, seeds and all. (Cut out the bad stuff, of course.)
Put a quarter inch of water in the crock pot and cook the apples for several hours, until they are soft and mushy.

When apples are soft, put them through a sieve or food mill. The seeds and stems will stay in the sieve to be discarded.

If you use Gravenstine apples they will cook down perfectly, but you may need to add sugar to the finished product. Other varieties of apples will cooperate to varying degrees. Just make sure that they are softened sufficiently before putting through the sieve.

(Click on the picture for photo credits.)

Almost

juicy
Originally uploaded by a COWsignal from outer space

It's almost blackberry picking time. Yum.


(Click on the picture for credits.)

Birthday Breakfast Cake

Sour Cream-Blueberry Crumb Cake
Originally uploaded by 2chacha

My mother made this every birthday morning. I passed the tradition down to my children. Now they, if they wish, can pass it down to theirs.

Birthday Breakfast Cake

Grease a 9x9 inch cake pan. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat together:
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons cooking oil

In another bowl, combine:
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Add wet ingredients to dry. Pour into baking pan.

Combine:
1/4 cup brown sugar (firmly pressed into measuring cup)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon softened butter

Sprinkle brown sugar mixture on top of cake batter in pan.
Bake 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Serve warm.

(And serve something with protein in it alongside. You need to watch your blood sugar even on birthdays.

[Listen to your mother.])

(Thank you to 2chacha for the cake picture. Click on the photo for credits.)

Kidney Beans and Tomatoes

9th July 2008 - Beans means...
Originally uploaded by mrszooropa

Here is an old family recipe.

Step One:
Empty into a small saucepan
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can kidney beans

Step Two:
Heat to simmering.

Step Three:
Serve with a dollop of sour cream (for K), or not (for me).

Step Four:
Be surprised by how yummy this is.

(Click on the picture for photo credits.)

Mandala Cupcakes

Click here for the prettiest cupcakes ever. (Thanks to Nokiomi.)

Simple Granola

(Rolled Oats
Originally uploaded by .michael.newman.)

Dissolve 1/4 cup sugar (a.k.a. "crystallized evaporated cane juice") and 1/2 teaspoon salt in 1 cup water. Pour sweetened water over 4 cups regular rolled oats and mix until all the oats are wet.

Smash mixture onto oil-sprayed baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and use fork and fingers to break mixture into bite-sized pieces. Return to oven for 15 minutes. Stir again. Return to oven for 15 minutes more. Remove from oven and cool.

Delicious as a topping for yogurt. Add mix-ins of your choice.

(Click on the picture for photo credits.)

Chive Blossoms

Spring! Time to sprinkle purple chive blossoms into the salad. Yum.

Encouraging News Regarding Food Storage

Have your efforts at food storage looked sort of like this squirrel's?



New Findings for Longer-Term Food Storage
Link here.

"Findings of recent scientific studies conducted by a team of researchers at Brigham Young University show that properly packaged, low-moisture foods stored at room temperature or cooler (75°F/24°C or lower) remain nutritious and edible much longer than previously thought. The studies, which are the first of their kind, increase the estimated shelf life for many products to 30 years or more (see chart for new estimates of shelf life). Previous estimates of longevity were based on "best-if-used-by" recommendations and experience. Though not studied, sugar, salt, baking soda (essential for soaking beans), and vitamin C in tablet form also store well long-term. Some basic foods do need more frequent rotation, such as vegetable oil every 1 to 2 years.

"While there is a decline in nutritional quality and taste over time, depending on the original quality of food and how it was processed, packaged, and stored, the studies show that even after being stored long-term, the food will help sustain life in an emergency.

"For tips on how to best preserve longer-term food storage products, see Longer-Term Supply."

Food	New "Life Sustaining" Shelf-Life Estimates (In Years)
Wheat	30+
White rice	30+
Pinto beans	30
Apple slices	30
Macaroni	30
Rolled oats	30
Potato flakes	30

Better Breakfast: Oatmeal with Flaxseed

Oatmeal with Flaxseed

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon sugar
milk

In a small saucepan, combine oats, flaxseed meal, salt and water. Stirring occasionally, bring this mixture to a boil over high heat. Turn off the stove, put a lid on the saucepan, and leave the oatmeal bubbling on the turned off burner for 1/2 hour while you read blogs. After 1/2 hour, remove the saucepan from the stove and stir one tablespoon sugar into the oatmeal. Serve with milk. (This recipe makes two servings, or a very hearty breakfast for one.)

(Thank you to this photographer for the cereal killer.)

"What We Eat"

Click here for a collection of photos about what families around the globe consume in meals weekly. Very thought-provoking. Humbling.


Thank you to this photographer for the photo of the plates.

Just for Pretty

I posted this today because it is just so darned pretty. The King Arthur Flour people really know how to do a layout. I love their pretty emails. You can sign up for them here. If you like to bake as well as look at pretty food, you can also try out their blog here.

Pasta Salad Made Easy

Thanks to Nokiomi (not her real name, but a very cute one) for posting the recipe for one of my favorite things to eat. And thanks to Kate for creating it. See it here.

Coolest Cake Ever

Check out this cake.

Don't you love it?

Beauty

Here are some of the most beautiful shots of fruits and vegetables that I have ever seen. ( I happen to think that fruits and vegetables are one of the most beautiful creations ever!)

Thanks to Jane Brocket, London, England.

Homemade Crunchy Wheat Cereal with Flaxseed

I have been making my homemade cereal with flaxseed added. I simply make the cereal, as shown here, but I stir in a couple of cups of flaxseed meal before the final baking. When the cereal has been transformed from a "cake" into "nuggets" by the blender and are on the pans ready for the oven, I pour some whole flax seeds into the blender and let it whir them into meal, which I then stir into the nuggets before baking. It works great and the flaxseeds are a very healthy addition to an already healthy treat. I eat a cup of the cereal with yogurt every morning.

Fresh Corn and Beet Greens

This morning we traveled down to Centralia to pick blackberries on a friend's farm. We came back with a trunk full of produce and feasted on fresh corn and beet greens tonight. What a blessing!

Three Recipes Using White Sauce

Thank you to my mom for teaching me how to make white sauce. Here is my favorite version:

White Sauce
In a medium saucepan whisk together 6 tablespoons cooking oil with 6 tablespoons flour and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook over medium heat until bubbly. Add 1 12-oz. can evaporated milk, and 12 ounces of water (using the empty milk can to measure the water). Whisk constantly until mixture begins to boil. Remove from heat.

Here are three recipes we love, all of which are white-sauce based:

Tuna Noodle Casseroodle
Cook a 12-oz. package of noodles according to package directions and drain. Make white sauce. Combine noodles with white sauce and one can tuna.
Serve with peas.

Homemade Macaroni and Cheese
Cook a 12-oz package of macaroni according to package directions and drain. Make white sauce. Combine macaroni with white sauce. Pour into buttered casserole dish and top with grated cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Hamburger Gravy
Fry 1 lb. ground beef. Make white sauce in the pan with the ground beef. Serve over mashed potatoes.

These are three of my favorite comfort foods. I hope you will be comforted by them as well.

Snacking, No Charge

We snacked on wild blackberries while out walking this afternoon. This years are the biggest I have ever seen. What a deal!

Raspberry Freezer Jam

Today was freezer jam day. Hooray! I love the smell, the color, and, oh boy, the taste! FarmBoy and I made raspberry jam when he got home from work. We began with the pectin we had left over from last year's jam-making . . .
. . . and two flats of raspberries which I purchased from a local farmer this morning. These I washed one cup at a time in a colander . . .
. . . and smashed with a potato masher in my big measuring bowl, because it has a flat bottom.
Six boxes, half a flat, yielded exactly six cups, enough berries for two batches of jam.
Soon we had seven batches worth of smashed berries, to which sugar was added. (We kept back three boxes of berries to snack on fresh.)
It takes 5 1/4 cups of sugar to sweeten 3 cups of smashed berries, and that, plus one box of pectin, makes one batch of jam, about 7 cups.
Once the berries were smashed and sugared, I cooked the pectin, one box at a time in 3/4 cup of water, boiling it at a full boil for one minute.
Then we stirred the pectin into the sugared fruit. (These are FarmBoy's lovely arms. See why the mosquitoes won't leave him alone?)
In a short time we had lots of little jars ready for the freezer. (Just four batches more to go . . . )

Berry Time

I ran out of berries for my breakfasts, so FarmBoy agreed to pick some with me on our walk this afternoon. I picked enough blackberries, the first of the summer, for my yogurt in the morning. We also found some black raspberries, which he called Black Caps, the first I had ever encountered. They looked just like raspberries on a raspberry bush, but the red ones are still "green" and the ripe ones are just the color of ripe blackberries. They were too tart to be good off the bush, but I added sugar to them at home, and made them into syrup for our dinner of whole wheat pancakes. Yum!

Best of all, though, on our walk today, were the thimble berries, which we ate right off the bush. They produce lots and lots of foliage, with few berries, as seen above. But they are worth scrounging around for. They are very sweet and have a nice texture, like fresh strawberry jam right off of a bush. Highly recommended!